Follow Me
by season5girl
Summary: It's the night before a fight against the Dark Lord; Remus leads Sirius into the woods and they both overcome not only memories, but future fears. Mild SLASH.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: They don't belong to me, though the story idea will. Does, whatever.;) Remus/Sirius/Harry/anything else I mentioned belongs to J.K. Rowling, WB, Scholastic Books, and whoever else owns it.  
Rating: PG-13. It's Angst/Romance and it's SLASH.   
Summary: The night before.  
  
  
!!WARNING!!: This is a slash fiction. That means there is male/male relations going on here, people. Nothing explicit this time round the maypole though. Not that I ever really wrote anything above R, and that was for violence. But anyway, flame if you want, I have marshmallows. Again, this is SLASH, YAOI.  
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Follow Me  
  
  
"Follow me." It was a softly spoken command, and one very willingly obeyed.  
  
"And where...exactly...are we...going again, Moony?" Sirius Black asked between stumbling steps as he meandered on the same basic path as Remus through the woods. It was all more tangled and weedy than he'd remembered it.  
  
Remus Lupin paused long enough on his trek to look back, the smallest of calm smiles leaking over his lips. "I told you already-The answer won't change just because you ask more than once." He said kindly.  
  
"You didn't tell me!" Sirius objected, yanking his foot free from a vine that had laced around his ankle. He gave it a scandalized glance.  
  
"I didn't? Perhaps it slipped my mind."   
  
"Moony you old liar!" A lopsided grin of extreme prowess appeared on Sirius' face. He'd finally made an impression on his old comrade, and though teaching him how to lie might not have been the most moralistic thing, to Sirius it certainly was a start.  
  
And after all the things, which Remus had taught him; it was a start long in the making.  
  
It was fairly late in the evening, they'd started out when the sun was riding low in the sky, and now Sirius began to find himself surrounded by the increasing darkness.  
  
He was sure it wasn't the smartest thing to be out in the Forbidden Forest this late in the evening, but it hadn't ever stopped him when he'd gone to school here, and he was damned if it would stop him now. He was big enough to take care of himself.  
  
No, it wasn't himself for which he worried. Remus though...he was still weak from the last full moon; you could see it in his eyes, the lines which laced them and the slight pauses before each movement made, as if he had to remember what to do and then gather his strength to do it.  
  
It worried Sirius, but he'd relented to go on this little...expedition just the same. Remus had seemed so determined about it, as if it would be proving something to himself to go. Sirius knew Remus to be stronger than logic sometimes said.  
  
Maybe he really did want to just take Sirius out for a night, and since someone would have recognized him in town the woods really did seem the only choice. But...something smelled off about that story.  
  
Sirius continued to rationalize it to himself as he stared at the back of his companion's head, trying not to lose him in the dark.  
  
Rationalization had never been a strong suit for him and in the end Sirius decided why Remus had been so insistent. He smiled at it, at the back of the man in front of him.  
  
Maybe Remus had wanted to prove to himself he wasn't weak. He was still capable of marauding.   
  
  
  
The crunching behind Remus changed abruptly; it was less plotted now, the footsteps of Sirius seeming to just fall where they may.   
  
Remus thought that his lover had probably started to lose himself in his own world again. He did that sometimes...actually, he did that a lot. More so now though, after Azkaban, after Lily and James. And especially with what had been happening recently. The attacks, the everythings.  
  
The smile, which had grown on Remus' face as he thought of Sirius' quaint habits, fell slowly. He didn't like thinking of what had happened-to Lily, to James, especially to his Sirius. Or to anyone else for that matter. It was his least favorite subject, yet he always managed somehow to find it. Even out in this woods.  
  
He looked around, drawing his own attention back from things best left aside tonight. He was looking for a specific spot in the woods, one which he hadn't been to in years, and he needed to concentrate to make sure he was actually able to find it again after so long.  
  
"-oony? Moony!" The voice behind him caught halfway through a sentence.  
  
Remus turned around, blinking sharply to refocus his eyes, which had glazed over some time ago with memories.  
  
"Sirius?" He squinted, "What's the matter?"   
  
"Are you ok? You got quiet." Sirius stepped up beside him, less than a foot away; he faced him head on, trying to read his eyes. He could always tell what was going on by the look inside those golden eyes.  
  
And Remus knew it, that was why he always ducked his head, or looked away, he never met the eyes that could so easily tell him what he was thinking.  
  
"Nothing. I'm fine, we should get moving, Sirius." He was quite proud of the sincerity he put in his words, but still, self-consciousness refused to let him meet the other man's gaze.  
  
"Don't think of them." The strong words resounded, more deeply then the others spoken.  
  
"What?" Remus looked up now, and callused hands cupped gently the edges of his face.  
  
"Don't think of them. Tonight is ours." Sirius looked straight into his eyes, his own looked dark, almost black, and deep, endlessly, endlessly deep. Remus lost himself in those eyes...he always did. He nodded slightly.  
  
"I know. Let's go, I don't think it's too much further." Remus turned looking down the small gap between the trees. He thought it was whatever remained of the old path he and Sirius had used years before. "Let's go..." He repeated, looking over his shoulder to Sirius, his eyes gleamed for a moment. "I'll race you."  
  
Before it had a chance to register with Sirius, he'd taken off down the path, far too quickly for any normal man to go, the power of the full moon still running silently through his veins.   
  
"What? Hey!" Sirius called after him, he easily let a grin pass over his face, "Cheater and a liar. I guess I do rub off on him..." He said proudly of his lover.  
  
  
  
It was a rocky summit, their destination. Peaking above most of the trees, and looking out across fields and a small lake, which seemed a pool of oil in the dark.  
  
By the time Sirius crested the hill, Remus had already situated himself on the ledge of rocks, he stared down at the water beneath them.   
  
"It must be covered in rocks," He said, Sirius moving beside him he laid himself down on his back, resting enough on his elbows so as to still watch Remus speaking, "The bottom of the lake I mean. From all the ones James, Peter and you and I used to throw from up here. We would throw them for every test we failed, or detention we were given. It must be beautiful, the lake bottom...all tiled with our troubles."  
  
"And that's where they should rest. We should leave them all there, Remus. We threw them away for a reason, and it wasn't to dredge them back again." Sirius said slowly, he felt this was something Remus sorely needed to be convinced of, even though he wasn't sure he was the best at teaching this. He thought it best to at least try. The past was the past.   
  
"I know.." Remus said, without conviction.   
  
A moment paused before he continued, "I suppose I wanted to see this place again though, to put to rest what has been done. I brought you, Sirius," Remus said, turning with the noise of his clothing against the rock to face Sirius, "Because I didn't want to be alone with this lake."  
  
"Even if you hadn't brought me, you would still have had me here. I was a part of the people who tossed those old rocks down. And I'm still a part of you, Moony. I intend to be for quite a long while."  
  
Remus slid further across the space between them, scraping against dirt and pebbles as he crawled to Sirius' side.  
  
His lover moved an arm around him and pulled him against his chest. It took a few minutes before both bodies fell into rhythmic breathing, a sort they felt only with each other.  
  
"Tell me, Sirius." It was another command.  
  
"Nothing's bothering me, except you. I mean-what's bothering you. I'm not blind, Moony. Something's up." Sirius managed to be stern and tender at the same time, something he reserved mostly just for Harry and Remus.  
  
"I don't know.... It was this last change. It brought so many memories back to me, I suppose.... It's tomorrow, also. What are we going to do if..."  
  
"Shhh. We're more powerful than last time we faced him. Harry's older, he can help again. And Dumbledore...it's very difficult to see him losing anything he puts his mind to. He's stubborn, Moony. Just like you." Sirius said, but it seemed to Remus as though he were trying just as much to convince himself as comfort him.  
  
"I don't want you to have to fight again. You've done so much already, Sirius. This is someone else's fight-it's not yours." Remus said, looking up to face his companion.   
  
Sirius couldn't help but hear the almost frantic note in Remus' words. He felt the exact same way: he wanted more than anything for Remus to be left out of a fight tomorrow that was never his to fight. He wanted him safe.  
  
"If it's not my fight, then it isn't yours either. Don't you see? We all can't back out. We all can't decide it's not our fight, or He'll win without any effort."   
  
"I don't want to be the last of us, Sirius."  
  
"I don't want you to have to be." Sirius answered with a small grin.  
  
A silence came upon them suddenly just then, settling like a damp cloth over the two.  
  
"Promise that we'll come here together again..." Remus whispered against the momentary comfort of having his lover beside him.  
  
"I can't...." His voice was pained, "But every time either of us comes here, we'll find the other one. I'll always find you, Remus. So long as you let me. I promise." He squeezed the man in his arms more tightly, emphasizing his words.   
  
Sirius' eyes were shut, too tightly to be normal; he pressed against Remus, holding onto both him and the moment.  
  
Remus looked up, finding the eyes he was used to turned away. "Look at me."   
  
A silent demand.  
  
Obeyed willingly.   
  
Both their eyes glistened with unshed tears.  
  
"I never saw the sunrise from this spot." Sirius said it as though this were a sin worse than any, his voice coming from far away.  
  
It was a moment before Remus could speak without falling into his unbidden tears. "We have something we have to do before.... Come on, Sirius. We have to put tomorrow to rest now."  
  
They stood on the edge of the rocks, the lake lapped silently below them. It seemed so peaceful. So oblivious to what it held.  
  
"Who first? How did we used to decide?" Remus asked, reaching out to clasp his lover's hand.  
  
Sirius scratched at the back of his head with his free hand. "I think James used to just pick.... Why don't you go first, Moony?"  
  
"Alright." Remus stepped forward a little further, "Don't let me fall." He smiled calmly back at Sirius.  
  
"I never would." Sirius said tightening the grip on the hand in his own.  
  
"Tomorrow..." Remus said, casting the stone out high into the air of night, it flickered against the backdrop of pinpoint stars before falling down, hitting against the water with a splash, the noise of which reached their ears seconds later.  
  
"Your up." Remus said, stepping back and smiling reassurance to Sirius as he too tossed his stone out, it went higher than the other, cascading over tree tops.  
  
"Tomorrow." He said, watching his trouble fall the rest of the way to hit the water with a tepid crack.  
  
He turned to Remus, who spoke. "I love you, you know."  
  
"After all of this..." Sirius said, insinuating more than that one night, he spoke of their entire lives, "You'd better."  
  
They held each other, Remus burying his head against Sirius, as though he wished never to see anything but Sirius' shoulder again.   
  
Their lips met more than once, impassioned, lost kisses looking for the path back to each other. They found it, pulling slowly back; it was a moment of being-simply being in each other- before Remus found voice enough to speak.  
  
"Look...the sun." Remus' words echoed quietly. An unwelcome statement the eerie glow of pre-dawn had already testified to.  
  
"It's tomorrow. We should go back."   
  
Remus looked once around the cliff, across the fields and hill that led to it. And down, finally, deep into the lake where in rested the rest of whatever was to happen that day the sunrise so willingly began.  
  
"Yes. I... think... we can leave now."  
  
  
  
It was night again. The sunset of the next day now so quietly coming to its close. Dark against the backdrop of the lake.   
  
He stood alone atop the rocks. The plunking of a stone hitting water seemed to be the only thing willing to break the descended silence.  
  
"Yesterday." Remus said.  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Well there you have it. Ok, first things first! I'm sorry it's taking me SO long to put up another chapter of Hopeful? What Me? but I just utterly hit writers block with that story. I'm still working on it, so don't worry, it will be finished, just more slowly than I'd hoped it seems. This is sort of like my return to FF.net, it's been a while since a posted;(;)  
  
Secondly, should I do anything more with this story? A sequal? Knowing me, I doubt Sirius is dead and I hate just leaving poor, sweet, Remus all alone! *sniffs* What do ya'll think?! Please do review! Thanks! 


	2. 

Disclaimer: Remus/Sirius/Harry etc. do not belong to me. They belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, WB, etc.   
A/N: Long time no post huh? This is the second chapter! I hope you guys enjoy it! I had fun writing it, and there will be one more chapter after it. There need to be *more* S/R in my opinion;) And I love writing them so..oh yeah: This is SLASH. Very mild, but consider yourselves warned;)   
Rating: PG for slashyness   
Summary: A week after, a cup of tea, a walk and a phrase.   
  
  
  
  
Follow Me: Chapter Two; When The World Didn't End   
  
  
  
  
  
  
It had been one week since our fight.   
  
  
Remus Lupin sat in an overstuffed chair shoved near the small fire, which glowed its crimson remains into the rest of the cozy room. A mug of still steaming tea clasped between his hands gave a warmth to his body that even the fire didn't provide.   
  
Holding something-anything remotely warm was better than holding nothing and realizing how empty his hands really were.   
  
Everything still seemed clear to him; every movement he had made that night, every few seconds how he would look over to make sure that Sirius was still ok, still fighting along beside him.   
  
Everything was still so very, painfully, tellingly, clear. The smell of the blood on the field, and the cries of wizards and witches, Death Eaters and ones from his own side, falling with a splatter of mud to the ground, mud which too often found it's way to the other's faces. A sort of natural war paint, Remus was still finding it in places. His boots or the robes he'd been wearing that day and hadn't found will enough to clean yet.   
  
Two days after, when he'd gathered himself enough to shower, he'd found that blasted mud behind his ears.   
  
He pulled the blanket on his lap more snuggly over him and brought the mug of tea to his mouth; though none of the brewing liquid found it's way out of the cup and past his open lips.   
  
He breathed it in, slow, urging breaths that clung to his lungs with the scent of herbs and thyme.   
  
There weren't very many situations when tea wouldn't warm the inside of Remus. But sadly this was one of those times. It seemed he'd been drinking nothing but the mild brown liquid since that day. And still it didn't warm the undeniably hollow spot somewhere just above his stomach, and just below his heart.   
  
If ever there had been a time in which Remus needed to have Sirius, this was it.   
  
They'd been forced to spend near 13 years apart while Sirius had been locked away in Azkaban-yet somehow Remus now found that to be a far more bearable option than this.   
  
Everything about the fight seemed so clear-except one point.   
  
Remus Lupin glanced to his side, after casting a rather nasty spell onto his opponent, who had fallen to the ground with a disturbing crunch. At his right and about ten feet away stood Sirius Black, fending off his own Death Eater, yet still doting (which it could be called since it was in the heat of battle) on Remus as ever. He spared a meaningful look and a wink that spoke more to Remus than words ever could have.   
  
Remus smiled softly back, before turning his attentions again ahead, forward, ever toward their goal, and Voldemort's downfall.   
  
It could not have been more than a minute before Remus looked back again, ready to see Sirius still fighting by his side, ready to see that wink, that smile and than ready to turn back again to the fight with a renewed need and want to get this over with. To be alone with his Sirius.   
  
But it didn't happen. Remus stopped dead-frozen. Sirius was simply not there.   
  
In the aftermath of the battle, Remus struggled free from the pats on the back and the congratulations, which were swapping between the victors of the fight. Several people he couldn't see-Harry, for instance, or Dumbledore, but that didn't worry him in the way Sirius' absence did. It dragged at the pit of his stomach, as he quickly made his way back to the spot where he had last seen his lover.   
  
As he crested the hill Dumbledore plainly came into sight, Remus rushed to him. "I can't find him, Sir." Remus whispered, out of breathe.   
  
"We are-so far-all accounted for in one manner or other..." Dumbledore said slowly, "I presume to have the tolls within the hour." The Headmaster's face was very grim indeed, and the dimming light played odd tricks with its shadows cast on his face.   
  
"The tolls..." Lupin trailed off.   
  
"The Death Tolls, my boy."   
  
"Sirius...he's...you mean that he didn't survive the fight?" Remus almost didn't dare to ask.   
  
"I do not know. There are some things that are not for me to say, my dear Remus. Though in this instance, it happens also to be something which I cannot answer you, even if it were my place. I have not seen him yet. Harry's being bandaged now, Voldemort...was more prepared than we had thought him to be. But he's gone now. Though I wish I knew if he.... But never mind that for now, he's gone."   
  
Remus nodded dumbly, swallowing deeply, trying to rid himself of the lump lodged halfway down his throat. He failed.   
  
He swallowed his tea down in one long, deep gulp. It rid him of that sickly empty feeling in his stomach, if only for an instant. He turned his eyes from the fire and his thoughts from the battle fought nearly six days ago.   
  
That had been the last time on the battlefield Remus had seen Sirius. It had been the last time all together.   
  
He searched the sky just outside his window for Canis Major, but failed to find any trace of the big Dog Star.   
  
Remus moved out of his chair and carefully picked his way over to the window, taking a closer look at the night sky outside. He could feel the chilled air radiating from off its glass a few inches from his face.   
  
In a moment of pure determination, he told himself he was going to go for a walk. He needed one. In the past week he had barely left the tiny cabin once. What he really needed was to go for a run as wolf, to be in a simpler body, a simpler mind for a while, and simpler desires more easily quenched. But there were two weeks before the moon would return to full again, and so for now, he would have to settle for his own body, his own busy mind, and his own aching desires.   
  
It took a few short moments for him to prepare; he took his tattered cloak from by the door, wrapping it around him in place of his blanket, and slid off his slippers, his feet finding the way into the same boots he'd worn the day he lost Sirius. Clean now, the mud was gone.   
  
The night air was cool and refreshing, it held with it a promise of many more hours of the beautifully quiet night. It reminded Remus of the air his very first night at Hogwarts. It had been this same sort of beauty.   
  
But those thoughts brought with them ones he chose not to think of tonight.   
  
He moved carefully away from the light of the cabin, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark, he moved down the small dirt path that led deep into the woods. If you followed it long enough-until it ended-and then even past it, wandering through the woods as Remus now did, you would eventually come across Hogsmeade about two hours walk in.   
  
Remus, never being one take things too slowly when he hurt (though he knew of some who would have disagreed with that), sped his pace and came across the tiny wizarding village in little more than an hour.   
  
Almost all it's lights had long been put out, and the streets were quiet with only the sound of summer crickets to haunt them. There were no ghosts out here tonight, no one haunting the Shrieking Shack this time.   
  
Remus hadn't ever needed a goal when he went for walks, that had always been Sirius' thing. Yet, on this walk he had one anyway.   
  
He paused a moment by a lamp-post, leaning on it for some support, it's bent iron something more firmly placed in the world of reality than Remus at that instant.   
  
For a time he stood there, clasping at the metal, thinking perhaps another night would be better for this journey, some other time, but just not now. He knew though that the longer he found reason or excuse to put it off, the tougher it, in the end, would be for him.   
  
No, determination back in place, he continued on his way, down the main street of Hogsmeade, and into the woods beyond.   
  
He was outside Hogwarts now, a good 15 minutes later, could see it in the distance, a glimmering reminder of things, with it's few lights burning in odd windows here and there.   
  
Remus' thoughts briefly turned to Harry, who was in his final year there. Harry had fought bravely, had, as everyone knew he would, fought Voldemort in the end. And, as everyone knew he would, had defeated him. For now, Remus' mind spoke up. The worrying doubt that the Dark Lord couldn't honestly be gone for good still lingered, and Remus, especially now, was unsure of how to banish it.   
  
He didn't, he pushed it aside and away, and went deeper into the woods, until he came to a path of familiarities to him, and headed down it, with less spring and hurry in his step than the last time he'd been here.   
  
After walking a time, the trees thinned and broke away by the base of the hill, revealing it, and the clear fields surrounding it.   
  
Remus stayed at the base for a minute, looking up the slope, and up higher to the sky. His eyes tracing patterns through the stars before he raced with himself to get up the hill, thinking that maybe if he ran fast...maybe he would outrun all these thoughts of his. Something which he sorely needed to accomplish tonight.   
  
But by the time he found himself at the top of the hill, it's grasses blowing in the warmer breeze; his thoughts he knew were to stay with him. Perhaps for the rest of his life.   
  
He found a seat on the large, flat rock that overlooked the edge, the tiny lake below it. Remus sat and felt the stone beneath him still warm from the sun of that day.   
  
He closed his eyes and looked up as if he might still feel it's rays, but none found him, and he opened his eyes, casting them down to his own hands. He remembered how once, more than once, he had lain beside Sirius in bed, on Sunday mornings all sunny and promising, and how he had studied his lover's hands; strong, and lean, and pale, not so gaunt as Remus had found them after Azkaban. He studied them until Sirius awoke, trying to lock their image in his mind, as if he knew that someday, the chance to look upon them might be stolen from him.   
  
And Remus felt it then with urgency now that he must remember every line and curve, every look and word that Sirius had ever given him. As though it would prove he was still alive! No body had been found, and for all that poor Remus knew, his Sirius could have been captured by some Death Eater that had escaped. He could be being tortured, he could be having any number of...oh but...but Remus shook himself. He couldn't think of that. He couldn't! It was almost better to think of him as dea-as having died in battle than to think of him helpless and lost and calling for Remus.   
  
A tiny quiver of emotion ran along Remus and he clenched his hands into fists. He wanted to howl, to let all this out of him, put it into the world and see what they made of it.   
  
Sometimes you feel like standing on the highest building and shouting out your feeling to everyone below, so that there are no more secrets, and no mistakes as to where you stand and with whom you stand.   
  
Sometimes you want to crawl into your room, a cave, under a rock, with that one someone, just to escape the world for a while. At this moment, with the stars hovering above, and the breeze taking on a colder air, Remus did not know which he wanted to do more. Only he knew he wanted to do it with Sirius.   
  
He looked down at the lake and saw by it some animal drinking. He looked more closely, and found the animal to be a wolf. Large and dark in the shadows, for a moment Remus hoped it might have been...him, but it wasn't. Of course, what was I expecting?! He scolded himself.   
  
"He's not even the wolf in this relationship."   
  
The animal looked up at Remus, it's eyes glowing a brief and faint green reflected from some unknown and unseen light source. Remus stared back at it, a common understanding seemed half to settle in the air between them, and it calmed Remus more so than anything had in the passed week. He let out a quiet breath, and softly kept it up, lost in the unworried eyes of the wolf below him.   
  
After a moment the creature turned and trotted back off into the woods, lost to Remus' sight.   
  
The calm brought on by the wolf lasted for several moments as Remus watched the spot where it had been, the lake that held so many stones with so many worries locked in them, and anywhere he could look without coming again to the realization that Sirius was not beside him.   
  
Remus hadn't yet dealt with the idea of turning around and finding no Sirius to greet his gaze. He had told himself it was only because of the short time that had gone by, but in truth, and in some small but growing part of him he knew why. Why he had not yet cried. Because Sirius was his mate; his lover. And wolves knew when they lost their lovers; they mourned, they howled, they cried out to the watchful moon all their worries and the moon shone down the light of comfort onto them. They mated for life.   
  
But Remus did not feel as though his mate had gone. He could not understand it, could not make himself realize. Perhaps it was shock, many people said it probably was. 'You're still in shock' 'he's still getting over it'. But no, he thought...it was his last hope, staying in the back of his heart and soul and taunting him with its whispers of truth.   
  
And he didn't want to let that go. His last hope, the last gift that his Sirius had given him.   
  
As he sat there, thinking, vaguely he noticed something fluttered down and sat beside him. Remus smiled very slightly as he saw the big brown-yellow eyes looking up at him, and the small leg held out for his notice and retrieval.   
  
Complying, Remus took with hands suddenly shaking, the note from off the tiny owls' outstretched leg, before the bird, with a chirp, flew off and down over the lake below, away into the woods.   
  
His smile faded and he opened the note slowly, curiously, but warily. He didn't want to know what it would say, and in not opening it...well, it gave him some other sort of hope. It could say anything. It could say...anything.   
  
Remus-   
I write you in great haste and shall not go around, but come   
straight to the point-   
  
Remus' eyes grew wide, and without thought or realization-pure instinct-, he was running down the hill and toward the woods, cutting through the old haunts he knew so well. Running up the paths, and coming to the clearing he and James, Peter and Sirius had often spent time in during their youthful ventures.   
  
To this no attention was paid as Remus made a speedy way to Hogwarts, with all the power his human and wolven states would offer. The note played in his mind and it's words he whispered as another burst of speed found his stumbling feet:   
  
-He's at Hogwarts.   
  
  
  
  
  
A/N2: Ok, so, you didn't really think I could kill Sirius off?!?! Come ON!;) I adore him! He's one of my favorite charecters!!! I have to say I sorta like the 'he's at Hogwarts' thing, 'cause remember that's the phrase Sirius kept repeting about Peter in PoA. Anyway, please review, I'd love to know what you think! Flames welcome.


	3. 

Disclaimer: I don't...*sob*...own them!   
A/N: Part three, final chapter, a bit fluff ridden, but then, I like fluff...;) Enjoy and PLEASE Review, you know you want to!   
Rating: PG-13 for mild, mild stuff including SLASH.   
Summary: A week after, an owl's message, and the comfort of a bedside.  
  
  
Follow Me: Chapter Three; What I Know Now  
  
  
  
  
Remus had a pain in his side and thorns in his arms and legs as he finally reached the stretch of lawn outside Hagrid's hut and only a little off from the school's main entrance.  
  
He held his side, squeezing the cramp until it left, and then running again, reaching the drive as the pain returned stronger than before. He ignored it, taking the steps up to Hogwarts in rapid succession and opened the doors as quickly as the heavy oak would yield themselves to him.   
  
He found the hall empty and paused a moment before deciding to go straight to the Hospital Wing; likely he would find someone there, almost certainly Dumbledore and without question he would find...  
  
Dashing up the marble staircase and the halls beyond it, up and up he went with the sound of his own footsteps and concerned thoughts his company, until reaching the hall wherein he and the others had so often went down to see James in the hospital wing after a nasty row with a Bludger, or Sirius after that old detention incident with Severus.  
  
Inside the Hospital Wing four people stood conversing, quickly halting all speech as the doors flew open and Lupin stood in them, tousled and wild looking, eyes still wide and breath shallow.  
  
"My dear Remus, I was not expecting you so promptly." Dumbledore spoke quietly; his voice and face mimicked each other in the grim decorum that they bore.  
  
Beside him and to Remus' right stood Professor McGonagall, who said nothing but held a hanky to her face. Beside her was Severus Snape, whose face was dull and dark, and who almost-almost at the idea of Sirius being injured? Remus wondered briefly-was smiling.  
  
Madame Pomfrey rounded off the gathering, she yelped as Lupin came through the doors in a rush and quickly went to shut them looking both concerned and disapproving, as he came all the way into the room.  
  
"Professor...where is-how is-?" Remus managed.  
  
"He is resting quietly at the time. He is over there." Dumbledore answered calmly, comfortingly, pointing past the bed curtains that were around one portion of the infirmary.  
  
Remus looked over, paling slightly. "May I...go and see him?" Madame Pomfrey began to speak but Dumbledore carefully cut her off: "Of course you may, though I must tell you he is not currently conscious."  
  
Remus nodded and gave them all a fleeting look as he went over toward the curtains, moving very slowly. It was to anyone who had seen all his actions that evening, almost amusing that how one moment before he was in such a hurry and now so reluctant and frightened to reach his goal. Afraid of what he might find behind those white curtains.  
  
He reached out anyway, it could be no worse than after Azkaban, surely. He pulled aside the curtain. The metal rings at the top, which ran along the frame that held the curtain, made strange noises, of steel against steel.  
  
Remus stepped inside the circle of the drapes and there, lying still and pale in bed, was Sirius.  
  
He was thinner than even a week prior, and his hair was matted, mud coded the boots that sat beside the bed, and his face looked, though not gaunt, at least a mockery of the beauty Remus' so often found in Sirius. He was still beautiful, but so pale...and his breathing was short and sounded painful.  
  
"Sirius...?" Remus questioned the unconscious man, reaching out to run gentle fingers along the line of a cut on Sirius' head.  
  
Remus turned after some moments, unable to look upon him anymore, so hurt as he was. He went back outside, replaced the curtains carefully, almost delicately and returned to the others.  
  
"What happened to him?"  
  
"Severus found him, at a meeting of the remaining Death Eaters, he was in a back room-something they seemed to have made into a cell. As to how exactly they captured him in the first place, I fear Sirius himself may be the only one able to answer, though we may guess." Dumbledore spoke slowly and clearly, eyes sparking from beneath his glasses, "We have been discussing and come at length to the conclusion that he was taken shortly before the battle ended. He has none too small a lump on the back of his head, and perhaps that is indication as to the 'how' concerned in their capture of him. He was taken to an out camping by Bath, which is where Severus found him just before evening today, when he was summoned to a meeting."  
  
McGonagall blew her nose and muttered something that sounded like, 'terrible, terrible'.  
  
"Will he be alright?" Remus said, turning to Pomfrey.   
  
"If he makes it until morning he will be alright. If he...well, he'll need someone watching him round the clock. We can't leave him alone. We'll have to go in shifts."  
  
Remus nodded and found himself to be amongst several affirmative gestures. Even Severus gave one short, curt movement of his head.   
  
"May I take the first watch?" Remus questioned Dumbledore quietly. His breathing was back in form but his slender frame ached from the outpouring of energy he'd given into. Not that it wasn't worth it.... To see his Sirius again, even so hurt, was worth anything.  
  
"You may, I will have food sent up for you. You are off duty in...two hours time? And then, Severus, may you take the watch after?" Dumbledore said all this with great conviction, though kindly, as though none of it were questions and all statements.  
  
Severus nodded again, "Of course, Headmaster." He spoke with some bitterness to his tone, and as if he was spitting something vile from his mouth and Remus thought he saw his lip curl just slightly.  
  
"Very good. If you are in need of anything, Remus, call out. And do not fear, we will do everything in our power to make Sirius well again, Hogwarts holds him now, and he shall not be stolen from us." Dumbledore said, putting his hand on Remus' shoulder and looking him straight in his eyes, which were sparkling slightly, sincerely speaking the words of his.  
  
"Thank you, Professor." Remus said in an exhale.   
  
As the others left the room and Madame Pomfrey gave Remus strict instructions on what to do in case of this or that, on how he should get her immediately, she too left, and Remus was finally alone with his mate. Though, he could think of many times when he'd been quite alone with Sirius and had found it much more pleasurable than this one. At least he was with him again, at least that hollow throbbing in his chest felt a bit full again, at least his hands need no longer be empty to the world.  
  
He walked slowly over to the bed, picking his steps, with determination in his stride. He smiled as he looked through the partly parted curtains.   
  
Sirius lay with his mouth open, and face peaceful, his breathing seemed more deep, less troubled.   
  
Remus took the chair beside the bed sat down, never moving his eyes from Sirius' face.   
  
He couldn't believe it, and yet somehow knew it all along. There was something between the two of them, he'd always known. They both had. From the beginning it was as though, in the back of their minds when they had been 11 and first come to Hogwarts, they had always known they loved each other. And when they grew older, they spoke it, felt it, acted on it.  
  
Remus was quiet for a while, watching his lover breath and finding nothing more peaceful or moving than that. He knew what he would say when he did speak, but for now he let the minutes go by just being next to Sirius, as if this were more than he could ever have hoped his life would bring.  
  
"I knew. The same way I knew you hadn't been guilty. I knew you weren't dead." He said very softly, leaning forward to Sirius as he spoke.   
  
Sirius' brow seemed minutely to change, furrow very briefly as if he were listening to something in the far distance. Straining to hear it.  
  
Encouraged by even such a tiny action Remus continued. "But, I have to say you frightened me for a while there. Six days, Sirius. Six days never seemed to last so long." Remus spoke with the quiet sort of pain he sometimes did-that slight, almost-there tone in his voice was as much as Remus complained. Never with a harsh word, only sometimes with a sigh.  
  
Sirius stirred slightly, his head moving from one side to the other as though struggling, before it settled again, and his brows eased out from the knot they had worked themselves into.   
  
Remus, not bearing to see him in such a way without knowing how to help, reached out and took Sirius' hand in his. He held it gently, tenderly; it was cooler than his own but with it came all the familiar touches and feelings that were Sirius.  
  
His hand grew warmer as Remus held it, his face flushed with a slight pink glow and the time went passed slowly, quickly, everything all at once.   
  
Remus had noted prior that that sort of thing seemed to happen when he was with Sirius. Everything, all the feelings, all the emotions would happen right on top of the other. No one had been able to agitate Remus as much as Sirius, or move him as much, or love him quite like that and vice versa.   
  
Sirius, even back in the days when they'd all still been at school, had always said that he found Remus' calm, non-effected attitude frustrating. "He's like a damn statue!" He stormed once, practically shouting at James, "Like he's stone, but...but...he's not! He's so warm he can't be stone! Grr! *How* does he do it, James?!" Sirius had said, flopping into a chair. James had smiled, knowingly and offered up an 'I've no idea.' Adding, 'Why not ask him?'  
  
It was their fifth year that had yielded it.   
  
The realization for them of four years of friendship, of a sort of funny knowing that had hovered, like a string, between the two of them. Tying them.   
  
Everyone else, James, Peter, had known before. And when finally the two had admitted it to one another, Sirius had wanted to shout it from the highest tower in Hogwarts that he and Remus were...what they were.   
  
But for Remus' sake he remained quiet about it. And now, Remus held more tightly onto his lover's hand, now he didn't know why he had wanted to keep it all quiet. It didn't seem to matter anymore if a handful of strangers from other houses had known. Now...he wanted them to know.   
  
Remus didn't know for how long he had been lost in his thoughts and old memories. But as the clock began striking 1am, he knew it had been about an hour and a half. He had barely noticed when a tray of food from the kitchens floated up and settled itself, after some trouble openning the door, on the side table. But now his time was up, he realized as he heard familiar footsteps coming up the infirmary hall.  
  
Severus Snape opened the door and entered, his sallow face shadowed and unpleasantly alert for so late an hour.  
  
He came over and stood just beyond the parted curtains that surrounded Sirius and Remus. His eyes flicked from one to the other, from their clasped hands to the cold food tray and then back to the fair haired werewolf. "Your watch is up, you may go." Snape said without the least bit of kindness in his deep and bitter voice.  
  
The air in the room was suddenly stagnant; and Remus struggled inwardly to breath it, it smelled of dungeons and of classrooms and of grudges.  
  
He looked down at Sirius, staring long and deeply, his hand still holding the dark haired man's. "Severus...how did you find him?"  
  
Snape crossed his arms about his chest, sneered slightly and said: "Perhaps you hadn't heard, but I believe Dumbledore explained that before."  
  
"Yes. He explained a lot of it, but I was curious to know your own version. If you wouldn't mind too much?" Remus prodded kindly.  
  
Snape looked as if he indeed would mind, but, with a long pause that stretched the minutes in the darkened room out until they might brake from it, he relented. "I was summoned to a meeting, as the Headmaster has already informed you." He spat, "I won't bother with details; I've been through this six times."  
  
"There was a meeting, with the Death Eaters, alright, but where was Sirius in this?" Remus asked after Snape had taken to looking disgruntled and as though continuing was something he'd decided against.  
  
"In the back room. He," Severus narrowed his eyes at the dark haired man lying in bed, "was unconscious, and tied. Otherwise he was...fine." He spoke with a pause that made Remus think Snape had never, and never had hoped to, refer to Sirius as fine, or anything other than a 'wretched dog'.  
  
"How did you...get him out, Severus?"  
  
Snape looked impatient. "The meeting ended and I came back to Hogwarts, I informed Dumbledore and he sent some people to take care of it. *I* was not sent, my position could not be risked. *I* did not get *him* out. I would have just assume let him stay there." Snape spoke coldly, calmly, but with a fire in his black gaze.  
  
"But you didn't." Remus was speaking now, voice calm though in a different way than Snape's. "And I am grateful to you for it, Severus. You returned him to me, and I owe you my own life for that." Another pause came as Remus thought for a moment, Snape seemed to find it awkward and he looked the madder for it.   
  
"I suppose...you and he are even finally? You and James?" Remus questioned, hopeful though with little warrant for it.  
  
"*No*!" Snape snapped, almost growled.   
  
One word, but Remus backed off. He knew it wasn't anything realistic to hope for-but then Remus had always been the dreamer, second only to Peter-but he had hoped anyway.   
  
Truth was, he didn't know whether Severus had it in him to ever truly be even with James. To ever be able to forgive Sirius' foolish, idiotic even, childish prank.   
  
Remus stiffened at the remembrance. He hated to know that, one way or another, *he* was the cause of the hate between these two men, he had been the prank.  
  
"If you intend on sitting there all night, I'll leave you to it and not bother with the watch I was so pleasantly assigned." Snape said, eyes cold shards in his sallow face.  
  
Remus nodded, "Perhaps...perhaps I should retire for a while." He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. The full moon was still a good two weeks away, but somehow it dragged on him tonight. Everything dragged on him, but it didn't affect him. Not in a way anyone else would notice: not in a way even sweet, observant Sirius had ever seen. But perhaps that was because things affected Remus differently, it seemed, than they affected others.  
  
Snape's lip curled as Remus stood, he looked down at Sirius. "You will take good care of him...won't you, Severus." It wasn't really a question.  
  
Lupin left the Hospital Wing and headed for his room, feet shuffling against the stone floor of his familiar old haunt.  
  
  
Never a foolish man or wolf, Remus had known from the moment he stepped into the hall outside the infirmary that he would not be able to sleep that night.   
  
So now he sat by the window in the tiny room Dumbledore had had prepared for him, sat and watched the night wear itself by.  
  
It must have been 5 in the morning when a drowsy Remus was woken to full alert by hurrying footsteps outside his door. And then came the knock.  
  
Faster than just any man could move, Remus was at the door, opening it onto Professor McGonagall's stern, tired, face. "He's awake and he's asking for you." She said, sounding as if Remus hadn't been the only one not to sleep last night.  
  
Remus found himself in a swarm of activity when he reached the Hospital Wing once again, Dumbledore stood beside Snape, and Remus heard the 'tsk'ing' of Madame Pomfrey from behind the curtain wherein Sirius lay.  
  
Remus nodded a pleasant good morning to everyone there but said nothing, not sure that he trusted his voice to work properly under such circumstances as these.  
  
Madame Pomfrey emerged a moment later, and Remus rushed forward. "May I see him?" She looked wary, "Oh alright. He's been asking for you for the past half hour! I don't know how you stand him, Mr. Lupin; he can be a terribly bothersome man! He's supposed to be resting but I don't see how anyone could get any rest with him calling for you so much!" She said the last bit loudly enough for Sirius to hear.  
  
Remus hurried through the curtains and smiled at the sudden relief; there he lay-*his* Sirius-with a black eye, a split lip, the remains of cuts Pomfrey had begun to heal, and the largest, lopsided grin Remus remembered him ever having.  
  
"Where the...blazes have you been, Moony?!" He said, voice cracking from weariness, pain, or emotion, Remus didn't know.  
  
"I could ask you the same thing..."   
  
"Do you have any...idea...what it was like to...wake up and have the first thing you see be *Snape*?" Sirius sounded disgusted.  
  
Remus, with a tiny laugh, couldn't help himself, and launched at Sirius, sliding down beside him, holding him, burying his face against Sirius' warm, tough, chest.   
  
"Oh come on..." Sirius cooed, stroking his lover's hair, "You didn't really think I'd leave you, did you, Remus?"  
  
Quietly, from the other side of the room Madame Pomfrey shut the curtains with a slight wave of her wand.  
  
Remus sniffed, and pulled away enough to look up at Sirius. "No.... No, never. But you frightened m-"  
  
"Shh..." Sirius put a finger against Remus' lips, playing with them briefly, parting them, getting the look in his eyes that told Remus' how much Sirius cared, "You already said that, I heard you...last night."  
  
Sirius eyes were moist and deep as though they went on for miles, though now all of Remus' face was wet with what, that whole week, he had not been able to show.   
  
He felt like a little boy, whose dog had run away only to come back when he got hungry. When he missed the little boy and the love that he gave so freely.  
  
"Remus...my Remus. I won't go again, never go from you." Sirius said, burrying his face in Remus' light hair.  
  
So much in those eyes. Those words. More than anyone could see but Remus, who so often had looked in those passionate eyes of his lover, his mate.  
  
"I know. And...Sirius, *my Sirius*, if you do, I'll follow you."  
  
  
  
A/N2: Ta da! It's not my favorite, I rather like it though. Anyway, please review; I'd greatly appreciate any feedback. Also, I was re-reading 'Hopeful? What me?', another chaptered story of mine, to get re-acquainted with it as I'm going to try and finish off chapter 6 soon. It's been a VERY long time between postings on that story, I know, but writer's block hit and then I get the itch to write about a thousand tons of S/R stuff. Sorry for the inconvenience.;( Right...so, I'm hoping that chapter will be up soon enough! Wish me luck;)  
And for this story, remember to review! I didn't get reviews for the last chapter of this, which is a bit bumming because I want to know what ya'll think of it.;) So...please? Don't you miss the box they used to have for reviews? Oh well...;) 


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